We are back from our New Years holidays with plenty to talk about. In this episode we discuss a plethora of topics including what we have been playing, the new console OS updates, voice actors, DLC, MMO’s, Bayoneta and various other gaming news.

* What we did over the holidays
* OS Updates for 360/PS3 - Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm
* Voice actors in Dragon Age and other games
* More DLC shinanigans
* MMO’s - Star Trek Online, TOR, Guild Wars 2 and new Zombie MMO
* Bayoneta
* Various other gaming news

Star Trek Online: the huge controversy about Champions Online offering new 6-month/lifetime subscribers access to closed beta of STO. These new subscribers learned that Cryptic was giving away closed beta keys on Facebook, Twitter, and other outlets while many of the subscribers still are waiting to get their closed beta key. See this article on MMORPG.com for more info.

Open beta of STO started Jan 12th, game is set for release on Feb 2nd.

Dragon Age Return to Ostagar DLC release announced but then delayed. A retail expansion is rumored here for March and confirmed by Bioware.
The DA Return to Ostagar DLC got delayed because of problems Bioware discovered just before releasing it (see here and also here). The new release date is TBA. A patch for 360 will be released at that time as well.

BloopersRogue Nine's blood sugar's a little low at the start of the cast. Later he tells Jae to 'eat the mic'. leXX sings for us this time, and Darth Groovy tries to say 'MMO'. Jae actually eats her mic later. We have a short discussion on how we want to die before we move on to discuss Jae's Gilbert Gottfried impression. We wrap up by saying (or not saying) 'goodbye'.

From MST3K's spoof of "Hercules Unchained"--heard as Roman medic soldiers carry off an unconscious Greek Hercules on a 1950's Army green canvas stretcher: "Hi, we're IX-I-I. Did somebody dial IX-I-I?"

Here's what a Bioware dev had to say about some Mass Effect 2 day 1 DLC:

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vsove is apparently a BioWare dev who posts at the PA forums

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Originally Posted by vsove

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Originally Posted by Dsmart

How does anyone still buy the excuse of not having enough disk space/content wasn't ready.

Its fine that they want to move new copies and sell some dlc, I just wish companies would tell it like it is.

You're entitled to believe it or not, but about a month before we went to cert I was going around inside the game and deleting what were essentially empty spaces to make it fit on disc.

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Originally Posted by vsove

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Originally Posted by LewieP

The only reason "Free" DLC is not on the disc is because they want to devalue your new copy the instant you put that serial into Xbox live.

Edit: It is not free, it is part of the cost of the game.

You are mistaken. The DLC was not finished when the game went to certification. It still has people working on it. This is not a matter of opinion - it is a fact. It's not on the disc because hey, we can't actually control the flow of time, no matter how much we might like to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vsove

The thing is, this isn't us punishing people who buy it used. The game you are getting on the disc is a complete game. You can play through it from beginning to end, and never will you think 'wow, it feels like something is missing'.

Day 1 DLC is a bonus. Not getting Day 1 DLC is not a punishment.

So basically it's: Full Game + Day 1 DLC = Game with extra content, rather than Full Game = Game on Disc + Day 1 DLC.

We can't say whether that's true for other games, but this free day one DLC stuff is clearly another bit of motivation to get consumers to buy new copies. After all, they get nothing from the used games market.

I felt like the sound quality is noticeably worse in this episode than it has been in the past, am I just making this up or was it actually worse? I just started listening so no comments about the actual episode.

I don't expect it to be 'leaps and bounds' better. I'm happy with a steady progression in improvement, given that we're learning as we go along. Broadcasters on radio spend several years in college learning their craft. We've had about 25-ish hours of on-the-job training, except for Darth Groovy, and you can definitely tell he's had some radio experience. Do we want to do better? Sure. Can we make it sound like professional radio at this point? I don't think we'll have enough experience to do that for some time.

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Originally Posted by Jeff

I felt like the sound quality is noticeably worse in this episode than it has been in the past, am I just making this up or was it actually worse? I just started listening so no comments about the actual episode.

I edited this time. Any sound issues are solely my fault. There were some things I did want to edit out that I simply couldn't, such as the occasional background click that drives me crazy. If the extraneous sounds happen in the middle of words, it's not possible for me to edit it out, either because the program can't or I don't know enough yet to be able to do something that sophisticated. I can't tell much difference, but after listening to the last few casts for hours and hours, it's nearly impossible for me to tell. If you could provide some more specifics of what you mean by sound quality, that would be helpful.

From MST3K's spoof of "Hercules Unchained"--heard as Roman medic soldiers carry off an unconscious Greek Hercules on a 1950's Army green canvas stretcher: "Hi, we're IX-I-I. Did somebody dial IX-I-I?"

I think co op in ME 2 would be great! Fantastic! But i doubt there will be any, since theres 4 days to go for north america, and afaik they haven't said anything about it for the game. (as in feature-boasting)
But imagine if it were being included. Perhaps one player controls Shepard while another player controls a party member.

Imagine how awesomely tactical/tactically awesome it would be!

Example: Approching open area with lots of crates and cover, with lots of enemies hiding under said cover.
Biotic Adept Liara rips them out of cover with Biotic Lift, Pull, Singularity, etc and exposes them while Soldier Shepard can shoot them to shreds with Assault Rifle.

Or juggernaut krogan Grunt runs in and draws fire away while Engineer Shepard sneaks over to a vantage point and proceeds to snipe the enemies' butts off.

It'd be like the tactical Party controls, but amped up a million times because its a Human playing alongside with you, not AI. (and you wouldn't have to pause all the time to do them: everything could be done at lightning speed at real time, which would make things look oodles cooler)

Quote:

Originally Posted by swphreak

Here's what a Bioware dev had to say about some Mass Effect 2 day 1 DLC:

@DLC: I think this is very much a half full/ half empty situation. You can very easily see the dev's POV that its a bonus, as well as the annoyed gamer's POV that its pointless.

Since i spent a freaking crapload of money for a preordered collector's edition, id like to think of it as being half full.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff

I felt like the sound quality is noticeably worse in this episode than it has been in the past, am I just making this up or was it actually worse? I just started listening so no comments about the actual episode.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jae

I edited this time. Any sound issues are solely my fault. There were some things I did want to edit out that I simply couldn't, such as the occasional background click that drives me crazy. If the extraneous sounds happen in the middle of words, it's not possible for me to edit it out, either because the program can't or I don't know enough yet to be able to do something that sophisticated. I can't tell much difference, but after listening to the last few casts for hours and hours, it's nearly impossible for me to tell. If you could provide some more specifics of what you mean by sound quality, that would be helpful.

To me, it didnt sound like a cutting problem, but rather as if everyone used bad quality microphones. the sound was all scratchy.

To me, it didnt sound like a cutting problem, but rather as if everyone used bad quality microphones. the sound was all scratchy.

Hmm. I don't think we changed mics or programs (we record on both Freecorder and Audacity, and use the Audacity recording as our first choice). I wonder if we just had a bad Skype connection this time.

From MST3K's spoof of "Hercules Unchained"--heard as Roman medic soldiers carry off an unconscious Greek Hercules on a 1950's Army green canvas stretcher: "Hi, we're IX-I-I. Did somebody dial IX-I-I?"

Yeah, I didn't really mean that the editing was done poorly, just more the overall sound was less clear.

Also, it is true what they said about 2010, I am all for pronouncing it "twenty-ten" and pretty much when I hear people say "two-thousand ten" I correct them. Do you really want to be stuck saying "two-thousand thirty-seven"?

I agree about Facebook and Twitter on 360 being useless but I like the last.fm app pretty well, though I don't think there are any advertisement interruptions on the actual website so that is still the best way to use it.